Project 
StoriesProject  Stories

During the early 2000s, Organo had reached a turning point in technology, built on a foundation of working with ultrapure water. The R&D Division continued to seek out needs for solvents other than ultrapure water, as well as synergies with ion exchange resin for removing impurities. Miwa Ito, who was assigned to the project as the main member from development, reflects back on that time.

"In the R&D Division, we were working on technology to purify organic solvents. This was an initiative conducted in collaboration with the business divisions, and it had the potential to overcome the "cleaning barrier" that semiconductor and electronic material manufacturers were facing. We realized that we could address the concerns of many of our customers if only we could apply and develop cleaning technology based on our work with ultrapure water. This was our source of synergy, and the project expanded rapidly into a company-wide initiative in which engineering, sales, and management all worked together."
This marked the full-scale launch of the project for ion-exchange resins used in the purification of electronic materials.

However, Organo lacked knowledge of solvent electronic materials at that time. Ito and the other engineers began visiting customers together with salespeople from the business divisions.
"We began developing an understanding as we spoke with more and more customers, and then we started to identify some of the issues we needed to address. What materials need to be removed? What level would be acceptable? How can we use ion exchange resins? As the days went on, we started developing more accurate hypotheses, and our technologies ultimately became products."

A wide variety of electronic materials are used in the processes for manufacturing semiconductors, and the issue of trace impurities was of great concern to semiconductor and electronic material manufacturers. Michiyuki Ishihara, who was in sales at the time and remembers the conditions they were facing, explains.

"Although ultrapure water required for semiconductor manufacturing had achieved purity close to the theoretical limit, the poor purity of electronic materials was causing wafer contamination. You can't make semiconductors without clean water and electronic materials. We told electronic material manufacturers about the concerns we were hearing from semiconductor manufacturers, and ultimately developed a solution over the course of many meetings."

For electronic material manufacturers, poor yields caused by insufficient purity had become a serious bottleneck.
"There were many semiconductor manufacturers concerned about residual impurities in electronic materials, which could prevent them from actually making products," Ishihara continues. "One example is distillation equipment, which uses differences in the boiling points of substances to remove impurities. We were hearing concerns about residual metallic impurities left by the equipment itself, as well as difficulties in removing impurities with boiling points close to that of the target substance. Our customers wanted an extra level of cleanliness to make sure that the last mile of manufacturing goes smoothly. I realized that our ion exchange resin would be crucial in bridging the gap between manufacturers and suppliers."

Back in 2000, the semiconductor manufacturing divisions of Japan's electronics manufacturers were among the world's top semiconductor manufacturers, and they were pushing to develop even more advanced products. Ion exchange resins for purifying electronic materials were exactly the advanced technology that the industry needed at that time.

Demand for ion exchange resins for purifying electronic materials has increased tenfold over the past decade. Business is also expected to increase tenfold over the next decade. According to Toshiaki Nihei, who works in technical sales, this is due to the expanding scope for high purification and increasingly strict requirements.

"Logic semiconductors continue to decrease in size as we approach the 3 nm^* and 2 nm generations of products. The level at which impurities must be removed is becoming stricter, while more types of impurities are also needing to be removed. The challenge has now shifted toward domains that are difficult for conventional technologies, and customers are increasingly making use of new ion exchange resins. Meanwhile, demand for semiconductor products themselves is increasing due to expanding use of technologies such as AI and data centers, and the switch to multifunctional smartphones and vehicles. This is also boosting demand for existing ion exchange resins."

Ishihara elaborates: "Semiconductors are becoming increasingly faster, and the scope of the level at which electronic materials are cleaned is expanding. What's considered advanced technology today will be considered standard technology five years from now, and then new technology will be released. In supporting the semiconductor industry, we need to always continue to keep up with the latest advanced technology."

*Nanometer. One nm is equal to one billionth of a meter. Numbers continue to decrease as the ultra-high performance of semiconductors increases.

The greatest barrier in the way of removing impurities from electronic material is the fact that each material is unique. In other words, the raw materials and what is being purified vary from customer to customer, and a purification process unique to each material must be designed. Making things even more difficult is the fact that a lot of information cannot be disclosed.

Akira Nakamura, who was responsible for development, explains.
"These are core technologies for our customers, and there are many cases where they cannot disclose information on what needs to be purified, even to their technical partners. We need to remove metallic impurities without knowing what the solvent is. However, even if we are able to remove the impurities, it would be meaningless if we ended up damaging that solvent. That's why we have multiple discussions with the customer, develop hypotheses, and then narrow down which ion exchange resin candidates, combinations, and treatment methods we could use. It was very challenging."

Development requires a deep understanding of both ion exchange resins and what to purify, and the ability to infer what will happen when substances are mixed. It also requires leveraging knowledge gained through previous projects.
"There's nothing greater than the joy you get from solving a problem," adds Akira with a big grin.

Optimizing ion exchange resins for each customer involves several steps. The first step is to determine what to purify, what to remove, and what level of purification is required. The next step is to determine what kind of ion exchange resin, or combination of resins, to use. The final step is implementation through a process of lab and scale-up evaluations.

"Based on the information and requirements we obtain through discussion with the customer, we come up with a technical hypothesis and conduct small-scale experiments, at an amount of several tens of milliliters," Nakamura elaborates. "If a substance shows some promise during screening, we start scaling up to several hundreds of milliliters, several liters, and then several tens of liters. Some experiments don't go well, but even those provide us with valuable insight, so none of our experiments or verifications are a waste of time."

Feedback from the customer is also very important for this process of trial and error.
"We provide ion exchange resins based on our hypotheses and then ask our customers to evaluate them. This process is extremely important," explains Nihei. "After providing a product, we make sure to confirm the customer's evaluation. If any new issues were found, we take it back to the development team. We continue to do this until we develop the right product for the job."

Manufacturers and suppliers involved in semiconductor manufacturing are working on novel projects at the forefront of technology. Organo provides support to these customers at the forefront.

Organo's ion exchange resins are used to clean electronic materials as thoroughly as possible, and they play an important role in the electronics industry. But the contributions made by these products do not stop there. Ishihara has had many opportunities to interact with customers in various fields and sees the technology expanding into other industries.

"There's a technology called chromatographic separation, where you use the differences in adsorption affinity and migration speed between substances to separate components mixed together, and ion exchange resins excel in this area. We've been getting requests from companies in the medical, pharmaceutical, and bio-tech fields, and demand is also growing for companies involved in recycling electronic materials, where purity is a key factor."

Ito expands on Ishihara's comment. "The principle remains the same. What changes are the needs of the time. Ion exchange resins have been used in various industries for a very long time. In the food sector, these were first used for superfine sugar, and then use expanded to functional food products and health food products. In the energy sector, they're used with thermal and atomic power generation, hydrogen, and products like fuel cells. It's truly exciting to see how the use of ion exchange resins changes to meet new needs as times change." Ion exchange resins will continue to provide flexible support during an era of constant change.

While there are other technologies for removing impurities from electronic materials, Organo made the decision to go with ion exchange resins. Why is that? According to Nihei, it's the "overall capabilities" they provide.

"Our products help to purify substances at a level that other companies cannot match, customized for each request we receive. Doing this requires the ability to communicate and draw out the customer's thoughts and goals. The greatest value we provide is in sales and development always working together to solve our customers' problems, and I take a lot of pride in that. I think that you need a solid technical sales foundation that goes beyond just sales in order to come up with a hypothesis and draw out the customer's reaction to it."

Nakamura feels the same way.
"Our core strengths are the high quality of our ion exchange resins and our wide lineup of products, but just having good products isn't enough to win a customer over," he explains, revealing his inner thoughts as an engineer. "It's crucial for development and sales to work together in order to build a trust relationship with customers, where the customer is happy that they came to us for help. Just like how Nihei is gaining a technical background through experience, I'm learning how to handle sales-related work, so it's like we're helping each other to improve our skills."

It is also important to share information obtained from customers with the rest of the team. Nihei provides an example.
"We really focus on creating ways to collect information from customers and share it within the department and with the development team. Doing this as an organization allows us to submit highly accurate proposals quicker, and this also helps promote the development of new resins."
This continuous process of sharing information is itself becoming one of Organo's strengths.

It is thanks to the communication skills, technical skills, proposal skills, and co-creation skills of its employees that Organo is able to provide highly refined products to address customers' challenges. How are these skills developed and passed down? We asked Michiyuki, Toshiaki, Miwa, and Akira about their perspective on work.

In the electronics industry, demand for semiconductors is expected to become increasingly diverse and advanced, beginning with the widespread adoption of generative AI. As for Organo's ion exchange resins, the company will continue to refine its advanced cleaning technology to meet even greater expectations.